Wednesday, June 26, 2013

May clearly sucked. June seemed to have gotten better, until now. It might have been that Dereck was home. Maybe because I had started a new workout/bootcamp routine and was feeling good about it. Maybe it was that we finally had sunshine and warmth. Which if you live in or near Anchorage, it is rare to have 70-80+ degree weather, and for multiple days/weeks on end at that. Who knows what made me feel better, but the fact is that those feelings of relief, less stress, and less worry are gone. Eveything seems to be making me cry this past week.

Their are few things for sure that I know have contributed to this.

First being that I was at a friends bachelorette party this past weekend, so of course their was talk of "when are you gonna start ttc" and "how many kids do you guys want"? Hearing this stuff still makes me just cringe. I swear I have even developed like a nervous twitch when I hear this sort of thing. No joke. The blm in me just thinks that this will be another person/friend that has their first baby before I have my first one even live long enough to bring home. I hate these thoughts, especially because I feel like I am just giving up on Max.

Then there is the other various blm's that I know who have recently had there rainbows. I feel so ridiculous and selfish that those jealous feelings take over, even with them. Afterall, they too have lost a baby and some I have even followed throughout their journeys. I guess I just get so frustrated to think that I lost my baby first, then lost my rainbow baby, and I am still trying to bring home a baby after all this time. Even one of my fellow uterine rupture babyloss moms, who lost her son right around the time I lost Evelynn, just had her rainbow the other day. I am happy everything worked out, she didn't rerupture, and the baby is healthy, but damn it already when is it my turn. Not that it's a competition, but still it frustrates me that I am still "here". I barely even take part in that group anymore because I honestly can't handle hearing of more losses, but even more so hearing of my pregnancies and births. Same goes for the surrogacy groups I am in. I suck:(

Then, I have been trying to slowly work on getting the nursery in order and organizing all of Liam and Evelynn's stuff. I can only handle going in the nursery for a short period of time before I just have to get out. It overwhelms me so much still. It's a different room, but still has lots of memories and sadness tied to so many of the items in it. I want to finish it for Max, but need to find away to work in it without my thoughts taking over. I also got all of Liam and Evelynn's stuff out of the nursery and together, and have been trying to sort through it to decide what I should throw away and what I want to keep. So much of Evelynn's stuff I can't part with yet, plus I still need to do her scrapbook and want to hold onto a lot of stuff for use in that. Liam's scrapbook is done but I still have had the majority of the papers I received at UCSF and from various other places about babyloss and grief. I finally got myself to throw most of that stuff away and will donate the books on grief to Hospice probably, which I did with a few others I had in the past. Why I still had so many random papers from the hospital, I don't know. Some I had never looked at and some I felt the need to hold onto in case I needed them again-ugh. I cried almost the entire time going through this stuff:(. At any rate they are all in the garbage now. I am expert in babyloss, what do you want to know?! The sad thing is that I bought a couple boxes, that I thought were to small at first for all there stuff, but now that I am going through it and discarding all this random stuff that really has no meaning, the boxes seem empty, and I guess I don't have as much stuff of their's as I thought. Boo:(.

I also hate that reaching 24 weeks bothers me. Most people assume their pregnancy will work out once they get a heartbeat, others one they reach the 2nd trimester, and then usually once they reach viability most figure things are good to go and that baby will be here, alive, healthy, and home in no time. Me, I am officially scared now. I hate the last half of the pregnancy. We are a little over a week away in Max's gestational number of weeks that Liam had fetal surgery and died. As far as we know he is healthy and fine, so was Evelynn at this time, but it still irks me. I have been doing good with not bugging Jessica but not I am worried and almost want to get an update from her everyday. It's becoming more real now, especially now that I am working on the lactation side of it. Ahhh! Approx. 3-3 1/2 months to go. Breathe, breathe, breathe....

Dang, I just got my period. Well that's not helping......but I do feel a little better for venting.

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I wasn't there, but want to post a little about it since my amazing blm friends tried to include me and my babies the best way they could.

BLM-Rainbow Get Together 2013

I so wish I could've been there with my Evelynn.

The weekend of June 7th, 8th, 9th many of my fellow blm friends got together to finally meet after blogging these past couple years since they lost babies. I loved looking at their pictures and seeing all the rainbows together. It was great seeing all the mommas together as well. To finally meet IRL a group of people that truly understand the hell they have gone through and the joy that their rainbows have brought into their lives. I hope next year I can be their with my rainbow Max. I love the way that Brooke wrote about the weekend.

Thank you for including my babies by lighting a candle for each of them. Keleen shared this picture with me that she lit candles 4 and 5 for Liam and Evelynn.

Friday, June 21, 2013

Viability! Although that's never really mattered much for me in the past, but still happy to have reached it.

Less than 4 months and counting!

Jessica had her 24 week appt. on Wednesday and it went great. His heartbeat was 154 and he was as active as ever while the Dr. was trying to find it.

Next appt. is at 28 weeks, which will also be the 3rd trimester!!!

I have been trying to find a place in ND to go so Jessica can get a 4D keepsake u/s of Max for me, but having little to no luck in that dept. I'd really like to get some extra pictures of my little guy. Not sure what we are going to do, but I guess we still have some time to figure it out.

Since my garden is all planted I had been keeping myself busy with getting cloth diapering essentials. Yes, I am cloth diapering, and I am obsessed with all the cute covers there are. I wanted to do it with Evelynn, but Dereck said that was completely out of the question. Now I have him for the most part convinced, as in I'll be doing all of the laundry and dealing with the extra poopy diapers. Plus, all of the diapers he can change can be the all in ones and I'll deal with the prefolds and covers. Did I mention it is addicting, especially the homemade ones on etsy. So cute!!!

Operation Bring Milk Back for Max:

June 7th- Decided that since I started leaking a tiny bit that maybe I should just give the to pump a shot and see if I get more to come. Plus, I figured if I could get my milk back without meds, that'd be awesome.

Pumped only once a day for about a week and got about the same tiny amount out as I did when I first seen it after the anatomy scan.

June 13th- I had a chat with one of the ladies from the nursing boutique that helped me when I was first donating. She asked me how much milk I was producing while I was donating and couldn't believe how much I was able to put out in a day. She was also really happy to hear that some milk was already coming back with out doing much of anything. She told me that the pumping I did last fall already put me a month or two ahead of most people who want to get there milk to come in because the pumping I did for so long apparently changed my anatomy when it comes to milk production.

She really thinks that I will not need any meds at all, which is awesome, and what I would prefer. For now she thinks I should just start doing about a 10-15 min. boob massage about 3-4 times a day for the next week. Then the following week go up to 5-6 and then 7-8 times a day. She thinks in about a month my milk should be completely back. She said that with most people who have never pumped or breastfed that a month of doing this is the amount of time it would usually take for them to just get a small amount of milk to even appear, where as with me I am passed that so in this time I should be able to be on my pump producing away. Hearing that excites me and I really hope she's right. She recommended that I don't use my pump quite yet, as she is afraid it could wreck my nipples since there is a lot of pull and not much coming with it. My nipples don't seem to be irritated by the pump, so I have been using my pump once a day and then massaging them the other times. So far I am still getting about the same amount of milk to appear as I did when I first noticed it.

Their is herbs that she brought up to me, but honestly I am pretty against most herbs since the majority of them have had little to no testing done on them. Not to mention that the ones people believe could help in milk production, like blessed thistle and fenugreek have absolutely no evidence that they actually work. It was actually something someone made up because some cows were producing a lot of milk and someone thought that since they were grazing in a fenugreek field, it must be because of that. I am also just paranoid of everything that goes into my body these days when it comes to my baby.

Another thing she brought up was taking a concoction of birth control type pills that pretty much trick your body into thinking its pregnant, so milk production supposedly will happen. She said she has never done this with anyone, and again I prefer to not be on anymore meds than necessary.

The last option she brought up to me, which I am going to start in July, is going to see an acupuncturist. I saw one once before, because I had heard it could help with infertility, but hated it. She told me about two people that the boutique always use and that 80+ percent of the women that have gone to them have had great success with their milk coming in. She says they are the best in the state, so I am going to give it another go. When I called one of the acupuncturists and made my appt. the lady seemed to be super confident in my milk coming back almost immediately after the first couple sessions. She actually didn't want to start doing sessions with me until September. It is really important to me to make sure my production is in tip top producing mode and so I told her I want to get it going sooner than later, plus I am leaving the state in September so I need it going before then. Also, I know it is a lot of work to be pumping around the clock everyday and bringing my pump with me places, but this is important to me, and if I have a lot of milk coming then its just more milk I can start saving for my little guy for later.

Friday, June 14, 2013

I had started my garden project last summer after Evelynn passed away. At the time I had made the garden fairly small with mostly pinks for Evelynn, yellows for Liam, and white daisies for all of us and because I love them. I had wanted to make it larger and grow, as my babies would if they were here. Garden fever had taken over in early May and it truly was what got me through the month, as it was emotionally very hard on me. I can't wait until everything blooms. Here is their garden from last summer. ﻿﻿

View down from our deck

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Gorgeous bench and planter

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Evelynn's corner, full of pinks- peonies and dainthus

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A memorial stone I got for Liam shortly after he passed away.

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I added more colors this year- yellow/orange trollius, yellow and orange iceland poppies, yellow and red asciatic lilies, and chocolate lilies, the daisies from last summer are slowly starting to come up in back.

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Finally found a home for their rocks in their garden. Max has one getting made with his name on it as I write this.

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Their potentillas are coming back. I planted a clematis between them and some pink forget-me-nots in front of them. Then I planted more peonies, tulips and some columbines around their rocks.

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The ferns are coming back and then I planted more pink forget-me-nots and some himalayan poppies. To the left of these the primula is slowly coming back up and to the right of these is a rspberry plants, one bleeding heart is coming back, I planted some meadow rue, and dropped a bunch of ferget-me-not and alpine poppy seeds.

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A little spot in our house just for them

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Liam's buckets from his burial and Evelynn's pots from her funeral and burial

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Evelynn- My Baby Girl 4/22/2012 - 4/24/2012

About Me

My husband and I got married on 10/18/2008. After trying for about 2 years we were finally pregnant with a baby boy. At 20 weeks gestation he was diagnosed with a severe case of Spina Bifida, Unfortunately after having fetal surgery on 1/03/11, at 26 weeks gestation, our son Liam passed away.
Then, my beloved rainbow baby Evelynn was born on 4/22/2012 at 36 weeks and 2 days, just 6 days before my scheduled c-section date. My uterus had ruptured leaving her brain dead. She died a day and a half later. I am forever heartbroken to have lost not one, but now two, of my beautiful babies.
Luckily, we were able to find an amazing gestational carrier to help us bring home a healthy baby. Our son Maximilian was born on 9/26/2013. We can't thank Jessica enough for doing this for us.
Then, after learning I have diminished ovarian reserve and learning that using another carrier with my eggs is not a favorable option, we decided to adopt and signed on with an adoption agency at the beginning of 2015. Our birthmom picked our profile a few months later and on August 3, 2015 Ruby Evelynn was born.